The newly established Polish state appeared on the map of Europe at the end of the 10th century AD. under the leadership of Prince Mieszko I of Piast (the dynasty that ruled Poland almost until the end of the 14th century) to create a de facto Polish state and at the same time adopt Christianity as an official religion. The Polish state was officially transformed into a kingdom in 1025 by the son of the first governor, Bolesław the Brave, who, after his coronation as the first king of his country, after a series of military successes, significantly expanded his state.
In 1138, before his death, Prince Bolesław III divided Poland among his sons in a will, which led to the internal fragmentation of the state and the erosion of the structures of the Piast monarchy in the 12th and 13th centuries, leading to a period of great destabilization.
The monarchy of the Piasts was restored at the beginning of the fourteenth century by Prince Władysław I of Łokietek (1306-33), who was crowned king in 1320.
King Casimir the Great (1333-70), son of Władysław I and the last of the Piast family, strengthened, expanded territorially and organized the reborn kingdom, starting a period of progress and prosperity, thus laying the foundations for a modern medieval state in the center of Europe .
It was this king who was the founder of the first university in Poland and the second in Eastern Europe.
In 1386, after the Polish-Lithuanian union, the adoption of Catholicism by Lithuania and the marriage of Grand Duke Jagiełło II to the already Queen of Poland Jadwiga, he was crowned king of Poland under the name Władysław I Jagiellończyk.
The Jagiellonian House survived almost two centuries with the last king Sigismund Augustus, who in 1569 in the Union of Lublin led to the creation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, a federal state in which some powers were common and others separate. A little later, when this ruler died without heirs, then the nobility at the Grand Sejm decided that henceforth kings should be elected by way of the Free Election.
The Republic of Poland was a vast country with an area of one million square kilometers, characterized by great prosperity in all spheres of life, political, economic and cultural.
This development lasted until the Swedish invasion and the two-year occupation of the country in 1655-57 called the Deluge, as the invaders plundered and destroyed everything, stealing every valuable object encountered in their path. After this inhuman siege, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth never returned to its glory days, gradually declining until the partition of the country by its neighbors at the end of the 18th century.
The only exception that he added to the glory of the Commonwealth for a few years, at the end of the 17th century, was the moment when Polish Marshal Jan III Sobieski (1744-96) was elected king thanks to his great military successes against the Turks. Specifically, he first defeated them in Ho Chi Minh in his country in 1673, and then crushed them in Vienna, Austria in 1683, when, at the request of the Emperor of Austria and the Pope, he rushed to help spread Christianity in Europe .
In the 18th century, there was a situation of constant destabilization, because the electoral kings (1697-1763), August II the Strong and his son August III Sass, came from Saxony and were interested only in the interests of their country, as well as part of the nobility who elected them to power. Thus, when in 1764 the Polish enlightener Stanisław August Poniatowski undertook serious reforms aimed at saving the Commonwealth, he managed to do little, because the first partition, by three neighboring countries, Russia, Prussia and Austria, took place in 1773. The last effort of the king and part of the nobility who supported him was the adoption of the Constitution by the parliament on May 3, 1791, which was the first such legal decision in modern Europe. This was met with great hostility from the conservative circles of the higher aristocracy of the Republic of Poland and Empress Catherine of Russia, who determinedly prevented the rebirth of a strong Republic, which led to its second partition in 1793 and final partition in 1795, as a result of which Poland and Lithuania, a common superpower and one of the most developed countries in Europe, ceased to exist for 123 years.
Although there was no sovereign Polish state in the years 1795-1918, the flame of freedom never extinguished, keeping it alive all the time of enslavement. Continuous uprisings and other military operations against the forces that controlled them continued.
World War I brought about independence in 1918 after all the countries that divided them were defeated in that war.
In 1918-1939, Poland largely returned to glory with great prosperity in all areas, which was interrupted by World War II, which resulted not only in the occupation and destruction of the state, but also in attacks by the armed resistance movement. Poland lost 6 million citizens, making it the biggest victim of this pernicious war.
The restoration of independence in 1945 meant that for 45 years the Polish state came under Soviet control under the communist regime. This was the result of Allied agreements against Germany. During this time, the Poles, through hard work, managed to largely raise their country from the real destruction of the war.
Poland made great progress after 1989, when the communist system "ran out" and the state returned to its European roots, with events such as joining NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004.